You’re a leader with a vision who wants your organization to thrive in the future. You anticipate tough challenges and significant opportunities. You want your people to be focused and pulling together in harmony to make the vision happen. Is that you?
Not long ago I sat in a conference room with a CEO and his team of executives talking about this exact goal. They had big ambitions that were far beyond their current state and capabilities. How would their organization have to change to be aligned for this transformation? They needed help to identify the approach and gain clarity on the significant changes it would take. The following logic represents the steps we took over the next several months systematically designing our blueprint – in essence, the basic recipe any organization can apply to make sure it is ready to move into the future:
Define and sharpen the vision. Who do we want to be? The vision is the North Star of the entire organization and impacts everything – goals, resource allocation, roles, culture, competitive approach, etc. Take time to be as explicit as possible in “painting” your desired future state and breaking it down into specific goals and strategy. Vision gives everything else its purpose for existence.
Understand and define the work (processes). What needs to be done? Now that the future state is defined, deliberately design the work that will need to be done to make the vision happen. Compare it to what you’re doing today. You’ll often find shocking discrepancies, even processes that are entirely missing. Emerge from this step with a blue print of how the work should be done and a prioritized list of “pinch-points” (problems) to address.
Define roles & responsibilities. What resources do we need? Now it’s time to determine what kinds of roles & resources are needed to perform the work. What capabilities do we have and which ones are we lacking to ensure the activities we defined in the previous step will get done? The output is a list and description of roles and resources, and how they fit to the process and vision.
Design the organizational structure. How do we group resource together? Since the roles are clear, and they are linked together by the process (step 2), it’s now just a matter of grouping them together in an effective reporting-/org- structure that ensures maximum alignment to the vision. While there is room for creativity, the process above often makes “the answer” to org structure “jump off the page.”
Do you see a need for your organization to be better focused and working together towards the vision? Have you begun the journey of strategic alignment? What step comes next for you?
Picture: 
Ted Kerwin via Compfight
[…] I wrote about the importance of the steps needed to align an organization, beginning first and foremost with vision and strategy (note posts that describe what happens when […]